


the winter here is cold, and bitter

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Espionage, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon Illyan is loyal, loved and a perfect spy. One of these things is a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the winter here is cold, and bitter

**Author's Note:**

> This owes an enormous debt to Philomytha's [Aptitude](http://archiveofourown.org/works/215021). Trigger notes at the end.

"People don't dare have sex with me, once they know." Simon yawned hugely, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "Imagine your pitch of breathing, your little gasps and moans, and worse, your _failures_ – on record forever. This whole thing - it might be a change."

Aral chuckled darkly. "You're drunk, Simon."

"I'm not" – a quick look from under hooded eyelids, sharp as glass – "but I'm as far down that road as I ever may go."

Aral said, uneasily, "I ask a lot of you."

Simon laughed. "If you're only tumbling to that now, sir, perhaps I've been serving the wrong master all these years."

Aral said, in the tone he privately thought of as the _up-and-at-'em-troops_ best baritone, "You're ready for this?" Despite himself, he didn't stop it coming out as a question.

"Yes," Simon answered – drawling, a little drunk and very relaxed. It made him sound almost… Vor. "Honey traps, _agents provocateurs_ " – this with a very passable French accent – "and all. It sounds like one of Miles's Vorthalia the Bold stories."

"I can almost recite those by now," Aral said, ruefully. "Why do all the children love the Time of Isolation stories? Why is it always the darkest times they want to hear about over and over?"

"Colourful times, colourful tales." Simon considered. "When we were that age, it was too recent for children's stories." The tension funnelled back into him as he looked up. "Are _you_ ready?"

He reached out a hand as he said it, an oddly open gesture. Aral wasn't sure, for a moment, what it meant, if it meant anything.

Not yet, Aral was thinking. "Yes," he said, and reached out to touch those white fingers, aware about the coming together of skin, the memory of it, imprinting somewhere, forever. "The Cetagandan reception is soon, and we'd – we'd best be ready."

"Well, then," Simon said, looking down at his own hand clasping on Aral's as though not sure exactly when they'd ended up shaking on it, but holding it still, not wanting to let go.

 

*

Cordelia brought the last message. She was ushered into Simon's inner office by his somewhat harassed-looking secretary; they had never exactly defined the Lady Regent's security clearance, but Simon knew that historically it had been on a level with her husband's, so he could bring work home. Simon suspected the policy had been drafted with a more demure soul in its sights than Cordelia Vorkosigan.

"Milady, how may I serve?" he asked, smoothly, his lips moving in the shape of _you can't…_

"I'm here," Cordelia said primly, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, "to give you the seating plan arrangements for the Imperial Winterfair Ball."

Eight times out of ten Lady Alys Vorpatril would perform that little task, but there had been those two times out of ten, before, and besides, they hadn't, not yet…

"Thank you, milady," he said, and took the flimsies from her with a small bow and no further comment.

"Speaking of Winterfair," Cordelia went on, half-turning on the spot, "I understand you won't be joining us at the lake house this year, after all."

He stared at her. Given the opening, he said, "Things have been… different, recently, milady. Best not." _The best lie is the truth._

"Quite," Cordelia said. "The boys and I will miss you, of course."

Simon nodded; this wasn't Cordelia's forte, exactly, but he'd never underestimate her native intelligence. _The second best lie is by omission_. "And I them," he said, honestly. Normally he'd take an afternoon at this time of year, he thought suddenly. Pick out some toy, perhaps a radio-controlled scout ship for Miles with another set of controllers for Ivan, and books for Gregor. He'd make it up to them later, he decided. "I enjoy being their eccentric uncle Simon."

"If by 'eccentric' you mean 'professional paranoid', they have other uncles fitting the description."

Simon half-smiled. "Yes, of course. Was there anything else, milady?"

"Nothing of import." She paused, drew a small piece of parchment – was it parchment? No, his chip supplied, accurately and unhelpfully, it was rice-paper.

"Milady?" he tried again, but she brought her finger to her lips, and that was right, wasn't it: audio pickups in this room but not vid pickups, a courtesy to the elevation of his office and a deference to the better recording between his ears.

"That will be all, Captain Illyan," Cordelia said severely, laid the small piece of rice-paper on his desk and breezed out.

Simon picked it up. _Luck_ , it said in handwriting as familiar as his own. He looked at it for a few seconds, held the miniscule weight of it for a few seconds more, and then slowly, contemplatively, ate it.

 

 

*

When it came to it, the witnesses were carefully chosen: Lady Alys was doing the second iteration of the seating chart with Cordelia in the next room; some Vorkosigan Armsmen, young and thus more inclined to gossip, were in the kitchen, scavenging some food before dinner; Vortala was in the library of the house, waiting for the Regent to come out of conference. Aral had said he would rather the children, upstairs, didn't hear it, but they had agreed they wouldn't shout.

Simon stood up as Aral entered the room. "Well?"

"Well," Aral said, briskly. "I assume you wanted to discuss security arrangements for my upcoming visit to Komarr."

"Ah, yes." Simon had them at his command with no notes in hand, which was just as well. "I had thought another security perimeter, between inner and outer, and another layer of screening…"

"Simon," Aral said, conversationally, "has anyone ever told you that you are a passionless automaton?"

Without missing a beat, he strode forwards, power uncoiling into motion, and kissed him. Simon froze, then sank into it unrehearsed. For the first time he could remember he cursed his organic memory, cursed muscles and sinews and flesh and each of their betrayals, caught up with himself and found Aral's hands threading through his hair. "Should give them something else to talk about," Aral murmured, almost into Simon's mouth, and stepped back.

"Ah," Simon began, and stopped.

"A professional paranoid," Aral said, calm. He must have been talking to Cordelia, Simon thought, a little dizzily. "That's the job description. But it appears my Chief of ImpSec has no notion of the theatrical. Of the power a simple gesture can yield."

"Komarr," Simon managed, with initial difficulty quickly resolving into fluency, "is a ticking time bomb. To go there unprotected…"

"Two security perimeters full of ImpSec's finest is hardly unprotected. And if I come to them protected but unarmed, and ready to talk," Aral said, "they'll come back to me the same way. If I come to them with hands open, then…"

"They'll shoot you dead," Simon said. "You can't do it."

"Tell me," Aral said, deceptively light, "is that what you really think, or another instance of your continued reliance on a limited lexical toolbox? _Can't, won't, mustn't_. It gets tiresome."

"Things don't go to plan," Simon insisted. "ImpSec is redundancy after redundancy after redundancy – that's what we're _for._ "

Aral raised his eyebrows. "Don't you trust me, Simon?" Such soft-voiced, dangerous, disingenuousness, Simon was thinking – but this man had raised armies.

Simon took a deep breath, but the answer was drawn out of him before he could stop himself: "Yes."

Aral frowned, almost pensive. "Then why, when I make a perfectly reasonable plan intended to improve the relationship of Barrayar with Komarr, as I'm both entitled and duty-bound to do, do you insist on raising these roadblocks in my path?"

"To free your mind for other things!" Simon said. "My organisation is Imperial Security and what we do is _security_. Why bring in advisers when you refuse to take their advice, for God's sake?"

"I'd be perfectly willing to take your advice, Simon, if I understood it." Aral lifted a hand, then dropped it. "I am not saying that security isn't required, that a great deal of security isn't required. I'm the Regent for a ten-year-old Emperor, I understand the nature of insecure power. But what I don't understand is the paranoia. How am I to govern, without the _space_ to govern?"

Simon sighed. "It's your job to grab their hearts and minds," he said, slowly. "You raise them up with oratory. You lead armies into battle, I've seen you do it. You are a leader of men. That's your job. It is my job… to look after you."

Aral looked momentarily bemused. "To look after me?"

Simon nodded. He couldn't speak.

"That's a dangerous thing to imply, Captain Illyan," Aral said, still softly. "As though you spent your nights scraping me out of the gutter."

"I've done that, too." Simon bit back the rising, genuine frustration. And, suddenly, echoing that softness: "Though I had lived through a war, myself. Though I couldn't forget. Though I had no one to grant me my share of absolution. I went and I picked you up out of the gutters. I do not have the luxury of being Vor."

Aral hit him.

Simon stood for a few seconds with the blow ringing in his ears and his palms up. He let his hands drop to his sides and went out of the room. Cordelia and Lady Alys and the Armsmen were stepping out into the hallway; Vortala was coming down the stairs; Miles and Ivan – _damn_ – were behind the upstairs banisters. They were all silent as he walked out.

 

*

Barrayar still didn't have a news media, per se. Perhaps, Aral had said once, by the time Gregor's children reached their majority, ImpSec would face the same problems the Escobaran and Betan governments did now – a voracious, irreverent, incisive free press being the first of them. But that didn't mean there weren't the first shoots of something growing to an inevitable fruition. Democracy in action, Aral had said, with the sharp smile of a man with near-absolute power; Simon had been grateful for a lifetime of only three score and ten.

 _In other news_ , simpered the Vorbarr Sultana Gazette (distributed and received via one's Armsmen through the capital, and for a few marks extra, hand-delivered into the provinces; the first port of call for those seeking a blow-by-blow rundown of debutante troop movements) beneath an extensive examination of the dresses to be worn by the Counts' lady wives at the upcoming Winterfair Ball, _if you listen to the rumours percolating out of Vorkosigan House – and why wouldn't you - it seems as though the longest-standing political marriage in the Imperial government may be hitting a seven-year itch_.

An ImpSec servitor at a party held by Countess Vorkalloner gave a full report of his night's observations, including the comment by one of the drunker Counts that _Aral's dog might be biting through its leash_.

A young analyst officer from a country Vor family was courting a girl from the Southern Continent, he explained, and her mother had invited him to dinner, and then asked, in the worthy context of her daughter's prospects, if Imperial Security were the right place any longer for an ambitious young man with an eye to government…

A minor policy briefing from the backbenchers of Aral Vorkosigan's Progressives, republished at this time every year, but this time with an unusual sentence highlighted: _the Chief of Imperial Security is a political appointment, existing apart from the military rank of its holder…_

From transcripts, oral reports, chip-aided memories: _oh, but Alys Vorpatril was there, why don't you ask / she doesn't gossip, but my man Rowan had it from Vorkosigan's Armsman / Countess Vortala was at the Vorbrettens' last night, her husband, you know…_

Simon slapped the stack of flimsies down on his desk in annoyance. Lady Alys, just entering from the outer office, looked at him in surprise. "The final guest arrangements for the reception for the guests from Eta Ceta," she said blandly, handing them over. "I understand Lady Vorkosigan has already undertaken the task of the Winterfair Ball."

Simon pulled himself together, took them from her, let the chip take care of instant cross-referencing against known threats, and signed with a flourish. "There you go."

"Thank you." She paused in the doorway. Her eyes were steady on him, and for some reason the chip dumped into his head the artificial memory of being slapped in the side of the head, an arcane, crystalline collision of forces with none of the organics: none of the shock and pain of it. "Captain Illyan. Simon…"

"Milady?" he said, automatically.

"It's nothing." She shook her head, uncharacteristically, and went out. He watched her go and sat back in his chair, wondering for a brief moment if the sun were high enough for him to start drinking. It was a very Aral Vorkosigan sort of thought, he decided, and went back to work.

 

*

Cordelia didn't generally drink at official Residence events, barring the inevitable and extensive toasts; against a background of vote-trading and intelligence-gathering, it was uncomfortably like drinking on the job. This, she reflected, was not the usual type of mornings after. Aral was in the bathroom shaving, and at the sound of her rolling over and groaning, brought through a glass of water and some painkillers.

"Thank you," she muttered, took them and waited the requisite five minutes for the analgesia to kick in. When the bright morning light had stopped drilling through her closed eyelids in a direct line to the back of her skull, she said, more animatedly, "Sorry."

"Nothing to apologise for." Aral waved a hand. "If I'd had the opportunity last night, I would have got totally smashed. Why are the Council of Ministers such a collective ass?"

"If I knew that, my love…" Cordelia waved a hand in return. "And you made some progress on Vorfolse and Vormercier, that's something."

"I did at that." Aral came to sit beside her on the edge of the bed and pushed her hair out of her face. "Was there any reason, particularly, or just the usual?"

"I suppose…" – Cordelia opened her eyes, screwed them up against the light and manfully went on – "in fact, there _was_ a reason. Aral, Countess Vorinnis came up to me last night and asked me if I knew my husband was bisexual."

Aral said nothing, but straightened, lines of tension entering his body. "What did you say?"

Cordelia said, grinning at the memory, "I asked her if she knew what I did to the last person who implied as such to me."

On cue, he asked, "What did you…"

"I cut his head off." They exchanged practised and loving smiles. "And then I got fed up with the whole damn place and went to get drunk with Alys."

"Alys Vorpatril never…"

"No. But she was very kind to me, in a brisk sort of way." Cordelia smiled again, a little wryly. "Poor Alys. But in all seriousness, love, I am wondering why this particular piece of scandalous gossip is doing the rounds again now. It was so long ago, you and Ges Vorrutyer…"

Aral tensed again; Cordelia laid a hand on his arm, comforting but firm. "It's your horrendously bad taste in men that I disapprove of, love, not that you have taste in men. Why now?"

Still without relaxing his posture, Aral said, slowly, "Captain Illyan and I…"

"Ah, _Simon_ ," Cordelia said, understanding immediately, and thought about it for a moment. There was dust rising in the room, she noted absently, motes suspended in glorious sun.

"The infamous fight," she went on, reflective. "So… dramatic. Full of the requisite sexual undercurrents and of course muddied further by being broadcast to every corner of the capital by something like ten witnesses." She leaned back against her pillows, letting her gaze take in each corner of the room, the gaps beneath ancient skirting and moulding where, if they were there, the bugs would have been. ImpSec had swept the house thoroughly before the family and household had moved back in, following nearly six years' living at the Residence. Aral said nothing, and she glanced sideways at him. "Or… perhaps fewer witnesses than commonly thought. I didn't hear what he said to you before you hit him, love, but I heard – the sound of the impact."

"Cordelia," Aral said, in entreaty, and lifted two hands in a smooth curve, indicating those self-same corners and crannies. ImpSec, Cordelia thought, always ImpSec – and for a moment felt a dizzying vertigo, familiar but not felt, perhaps, since the very early days of this Regency, of being unable to trust anyone – or anything – at all. As an astrocartographer in the Survey, she had been on at least one ship plummeting into momentary freefall, delayed thruster spin coming online just a few moments later than strictly necessary. It was a similar feeling.

"The Cetagandan reception," Aral went on, "is the next event of note on the calendar. Perhaps the gossip will have died down by then."

"No," she said, truthfully. "You and Simon are constitutionally unable to resolve your differences without sexual tension and violence."

In a different tone, Aral said, "Cordelia, do you have to be so appallingly Betan about these things?"

"I have no choice," Cordelia answered, frowning. The warmth of a few moments before was conspicuous by its absence. "You and Simon…"

"Captain Illyan and I retain a professional working relationship," Aral said, for who knew what mythical listeners, and Cordelia got up, wandering in the direction of the bathroom to refill her glass. The water tasted of metal and salt.

 

*

The Regent left the capital in a lightflyer at the end of the week; his official statement said that he would be spending a few days with his family at Vorkosigan Surleau before returning, refreshed, in time for the pre-Winterfair festivities. It was true that this was a particularly political time of the year: a new Council session in the spring, and in the meantime, the closed rooms with smoke hanging in layers beneath the ceilings, the forging and reforging of alliances.

Experimentally, Simon tried the secure comconsole from his desk. "The Lord Regent has asked me to tell you," said the frosty voice emerging from the speakers even before the face had coalesced on the plate, "that he is sure you will only contact him in emergencies during this family time."

"I understand, Captain Koudelka," Simon said, wearily, and cut the com. Standing up, he looked around his office as though seeing it for the first time: the neat rows of flimsies and papers, the blinking lights. If he stepped out, there were two pictures on the wall in the outer office – a bland scene of the Dendarii Mountains, and a picture of the Investigatif Federale building on Escobar. The colours of the images merely served to highlight the drabness of their surroundings.

Making a decision, Simon picked up his coat and walked out, neglecting to call for a groundcar despite the snow coming down in billows outside. He'd walked through worse as a child and as a young man, born further north than Vorbarr Sultana to a crofting family, and besides, the city had what he'd come to think of as its prole compensations. He smiled a little at the sight of the Winterfair street markets, a nightmare for ImpSec when they set up within the set number of blocks from the Imperial Residence, but at the moment their lights and colours were a balm. He drew his hood down against the flurry and stopped to buy a hot twist of pastry with something sweet and creamy inside, chewing it methodically as he walked down the street towards his apartment.

Being born in the cold didn't mean you had to like it. He stepped away from the icy spray thrown up by the groundcars passing and pressed himself against the wall, his mind hitting a familiar groove and stubbornly refusing to move on to something else until it had completed the well-worn track. The capital city on Escobar, at this time of year, would be golden with sunlight. They had street vendors there, too, tiny booths selling glasses of lime and sugar with a sprig of mint. The fantasy lasted as long as the pastry – ImpSec's relations with Barrayaran consulates and embassies were multiply complex, interesting, firmly in his need-to-know pile, but it was a fantasy nonetheless: filling in his name, his rank, his useful skills, his potential contributions to the society of Escobar, all in the right boxes, then coming to rest on the one marked "Reasons for emigration from previous domicile", and writing "Please see attached continuation sheets".

The chip processed external inputs only – it couldn't tell you how many times you had a single dream. Simon sighed and threw the paper wrapper into a nearby receptacle, and went up the steps to his tiny apartment.

There was a rose in front of the door. Simon picked it up, thoughtfully – his mail, both here and at HQ, was checked by a team of analysts, parcels and letters scanned, the postal employees shaken down. If it was still here, after that, then it was just… a rose. Two, actually, twisted together round a sprig of wire, one white, one crimson.

"Ah," Simon said, out loud, and hissed at a thorn breaking his skin: it was the pad of his index finger, stinging now in the cold. Methodically, he pushed it as far it would go and watched the bright sphere of blood rise, drop like a red blossom on the snow. "Ah."

 

*

The only force more unstoppable than nerve disruptor fire, Imperial courier pickets and the family Vorkosigan was, Simon thought sourly, _gossip_. The ImpSec contingent tasked with checking his private mail were technically employed as security for Vorbarr Sultana District; the team who checked his mail on its way to his desk were HQ all through. And they all talked, within these walls, no matter how discreet and professional they were elsewhere; he had no doubt that the increase in suppressed smiles as he walked through the windowless corridors had them as its root cause. When run through on his chip, the men's expressions were depressingly readable. _Illyan's got a secret admirer_. Or, closer on-point: _the Chief's finally getting laid_. Simon wondered sometimes how old they thought he was. The youngest of them might be in their early twenties, but he was only just thirty-five, himself.

But, he thought, that was it, wasn't it: it could be from an admirer. There were no booby-traps, no results from the toxicology screen, no hidden poison darts, no innovative way of converting it into a weapon. It was just… two roses, one white, one red, twisted together with their own stems and a little wire. It could have come from any florist in the city. The one from the previous day was – he paused to groan at himself – on his bedside table. Carefully, avoiding the thorns, he picked up the second one from his in-tray and took it downstairs and out.

In the days when it had been occupied by Princess Kareen, the social secretary's office at the Imperial Residence had always had the air of a sanctuary to it. The Emperor, ImpSec, the Ministry for Political Education – none of them had thought it properly their own domain, and consequently it had an internal freedom not enjoyed elsewhere in the machinery of government. Since those days it had opened outwards and become a force in its own right, teaching ImpSec to buttle and the Imperial Service as a whole to behave itself. Simon stepped within when invited and said, "Milady."

"Captain Illyan, come in." Alys Vorpatril looked up from her broad and beautifully made desk and the seating charts spread enthusiastically across it. "Take a seat. Would you like something to drink?"

"Ah, no," he said, unconsciously reaching for his best manners. There were very few memories of his mother on the chip, but one of them appeared before his mind's eye for a moment: a simple family meal, a little before Escobar, _take your elbows off the table, Simon, and have more potatoes_. He smiled a little and sat up straight. "Thank you."

She smiled in return, the winter sun filtering through the window behind her, bringing life to the sculpted bones of her face. Not for the first time, Simon was struck with the sheer vivid presence of her. "How can I help you, Captain Illyan?" she asked, her hands opening in welcome. "And are you here in official capacity?"

"Yes, I am," he said, relaxing a little. "An officer in ImpSec's employ" – _the best lie is the truth_ – "has been receiving, ah, interesting deliveries." As he spoke, he took out the roses from the envelope he'd put them in for safekeeping. "Short of freeze-drying them and dissolving them in acid, these have been subject to every kind of weapons and toxicology testing. If there is a message in them, it's not lethal, and it's not a cipher: what message there may be exists in the things themselves. It occurs to me that the symbolism of flowers might be more in your line than ImpSec's."

"Let me see," she said, and he handed them over. "Locally obtained," she said, thoughtfully, turning them over in her hands, bringing them to her nose and taking a moment to assess the fragrance. "I assume your analysts got that far? It's a variety grown around Vorbarr Sultana. They're very similar to the ones we use for Imperial functions. They could be from the same supplier, in fact."

Simon nodded – ImpSec had got so far, without the fine detail. "So we take them at face value?"

"For a particular notion of 'face value', yes." She offered them back to him; surprised, he accepted and held them loosely in both hands. "Red roses symbolise true love undying. White, innocence and purity. Hence the bouquets for girls coming out. But together…" She paused, then looked up at him. "We try to avoid it, especially in arrangements for official events. Blood" – her hand on the red rose he was holding, then the white one – "and bone. Does that mean anything to you?"

"A threat," he said, quietly. "Rather, a warning. Of what will remain."

Alys held his gaze. "You received this yourself, didn't you?"

He gave her a half-smile. "Someone in ImpSec's employ. Thank you for your help, Lady Alys."

She nodded and rose alongside him, walking with him to the door. "Good luck, Simon," she said, almost too softly to hear, as he went out.

 

*

The offer came three days after the Lord Regent and his household returned to the capital. The reception was that night – supposedly for the edification of the Cetagandan delegation, but part of the usual glittering dance. Politically speaking, playing host to the Cetagandan ambassador and his entourage was diplomacy; the real interest had been the drawing in of the intelligence network, if only for a few days. "There will be more of them," Aral had said, "and they will be close together and in train to their masters, and they will make mistakes."

ImpSec were out in full force, no doubt playing their roles as wait staff and footmen with their usual aplomb. Lady Alys had insisted that they receive instruction in their housekeeping duties as well as the more usual weapons training; Simon had been grimly amused at men he knew to be expert marksmen discovering hitherto unsuspected talents for wait service. Each unfamiliar face had been checked, cross-checked and cleared, but as Simon had observed to his secretary, by usual protocol, "Cetagandan" was enough to have a person wiped from a guest list at Vorkosigan House. Each one had a tail, at least, and there were a dozen more agents secreted at various points around the house and its perimeter on top of the usual complement. Simon breathed in, breathed out and went up the steps.

The house guard commander was former ImpSec and saluted by instinct; Simon acknowledged it with a nod and entered the house, the polished marble ringing beneath his polished boots.

Aral said, "Good evening, Captain Illyan."

"Good evening, my lord Regent," Simon said, bowing a little, and handed over his day's reports. "For your perusal."

"Thank you," Aral said, eyes resting coolly on him for a few moments before he turned to continue his conversation with two more progressive Counts. "You're dismissed."

Simon nodded before he went on, turning to make the walk through the internal doors towards the large hall. His chip processed in the background – no one here who wasn't on his list; women beginning to re-enter the great space of the room now the post-prandial cigars and port-drinking had finished – and there was Cordelia at the end of the room, resplendent in sea-green and silver. Her eyes skimmed over him, never quite settling long enough to catch his gaze.

Suddenly feeling tired, Simon leaned against a table covered in canapés. It was a myth, he reflected, that the Chief of ImpSec tasted the Regent's food – but it had been a long time since lunch. He took a bite into a shrimp puff, chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed and looked up at the man beside him. "Good evening, ghem-Colonel Esteban."

Esteban chuckled with something approaching delight. "It's true, then. You do remember everything."

It was true that the chip had cross-referenced the man's facial features against every report and list he'd laid eyes on over the last week, almost without conscious input from him. But Simon had a brief, fuzzy organic memory of the man's face in the entourage following the ambassador into the house from the fleet of ImpSec-provided groundcars. It was the advantage of the sweeping robes and the face paint, he decided: take them away, and the anonymity was eerily efficient. "Captain Simon Illyan, sir," he said politely. "I am the Lord Regent's Chief of Imperial Security."

Esteban chuckled again. "Believe me, I know. Simon Illyan, the most frightening mind in the Barrayaran Imperium. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise." Cetagandans didn't shake hands. Simon bowed, slightly, and looked down at his feet for a moment.

"I've been to one of these things before," Esteban volunteered unexpectedly. "Couple of years back. Don't have your memory, of course, but I'm sure you were at the Regent's heels then. Abolishing you, is he?"

"No." Simon risked a quick glance to either side, letting the chip take in the data and reviewing it while staring directly at Esteban's pleasant, bland face. The party was mellowing; the first people were edging from drinking to drunk; the dancing was coming to a close. All well, then. He schooled his own expression into a matching blandness. "The Lord Regent and I maintain a professional working relationship."

"Oh, really?" This time, Esteban's gaze followed his own downwards. "There is a sonic baffler on the base of that table leg, I believe."

"Yes." Simon smiled. "It muffles all conversation within a three-metre radius."

"Someone must monitor it, of course." The bluffness slid off the man's face like water, to be replaced with a more calculating look.

"Yes. I do."

Esteban snorted. "How very convenient for us. Let me say again, then: the last time I attended one of these gatherings, you were at the Regent's heels. As I believe you have been for seven years or more."

"At first," Simon murmured, "I was spying on _him_. Things do have a way of changing in an instant, especially after they've been building up for some time."

"I’m not, now, offering you anything you don't have already," Esteban said, direct. "Nor asking for anything you're unwilling to give. Allow me a further audience, Captain Illyan. That's a beginning."

Simon nodded. "I'll consider it."

"An analyst's caution." Esteban looked at him with equally cautious approval. "I see my colleagues are beckoning me over. It was good meeting you."

"And you," Simon said, leaning back against the table as the Cetagandan stepped briskly away. After a moment he reached out for his half-eaten shrimp puff, and ate the rest in a single bite.

 

*

Simon went into HQ on Winterfair, as usual; he walked down the silent streets early in the morning, picking his way carefully through the slush. He dropped in on the skeleton staff and dispensed encouragement and gratitude – the men were slouched in their chairs and handing around candied fruit, but not one had uttered a complaint about missing the holiday with their families, and Simon's appreciation was genuine if muted – and then went up to his own office, checking his message and chasing the status of several galactic reports he was waiting for. There were two roses, one red, one white, perched on the corner of his in-tray, and a tiny bud vase with an inch of water in the base had been left by his secretary in the outer office. Simon rolled his eyes, put the roses into the water and placed them on his desk, at his right hand.

The silence in the building was unusually complete, the dim sounds of water pipes and heating emerging as a deep resonance beneath everything. He used the time to undertake equally quiet housekeeping tasks of his own, inserting marginalia into field agent reports before requesting amendments. From outside, even through the force-shielding, he could hear the sound of bells. Mid-morning, when the sun had begun to emerge from the low winter cloud, he reached for his coat and scarf and went back out.

There was a little traffic, now, carefully sweeping through the standing water on the streets. The chip chose that moment to dump images of lime and sugar in glasses; he smiled, briefly, as his mind worked its way through the same old fantasy, all the details of the emigration paperwork, the mint sprig. The chip gave him the memory of the last winter walk home, the sweetness of the pastry, and lingered on the bloodied rose thorn.

On his doorstep were two more roses; he picked them up and threw them in the sink on his way to flop down in one of his kitchen chairs. He pushed away some reports on the little wooden table so he could rest his head on his elbows. The room was quiet, quieter than HQ had been, though still with the underscoring notes of the bells. When they faded, the silence was choking. He was tired, again, feeling tired in his bones, as though they were cracking from within in the cold.

He lifted his head, and then put it back down.

From memory, he reviewed the shelves above his head: there was a box, wrapped, containing a radio-controlled courier ship, next to another viewer loaded with adventure stories for boys, and on the shelf above that, two bottles of maple mead, brought back from Vorkosigan's District. He considered cracking one of them open, but the weariness, suddenly, was too much for him; in one rush of movement he threw off his boots and lay down on his bed on top of the covers.

He slept, soundly and dreamlessly, for several hours, until the bells rang again, shortly after sunset. Simon came awake at the change in the air, glanced at his chrono and began mustering his formal dress greens.

At the Imperial Winterfair Ball, glittering with candlelight and sconces and alive with political machination, Simon presented the day's report to the Lord Regent, who had returned from Vorkosigan Surleau in the early afternoon, nodded coolly at Cordelia and Lady Alys, took a tiny cheese tart from a roving waiter with a tray of canapés – ImpSec; the man gave no sign of recognition – and went to lean against the far wall, beside a large potted plant and a tiny, wall-mounted sonic baffler.

"The greetings of the season to you, Captain Illyan." Despite his bulk, Esteban moved like a cat. "Is that the customary phrasing?"

"Something like that." Simon nodded. "And to you, Colonel."

"I believe the holiday has its roots in old Earth culture," Esteban mused. "From what preparatory reading I was able to do."

"Yes, that's right." Simon nodded again. "It arises from an old religious festival celebrated at the close of the year. There were several, in fact, celebrated at similar times. My first language is Barrayaran Russian; my mother's family came originally from a part of the old world where the winter festival was marked later, after the New Year celebration."

Esteban nodded, and there was a pregnant pause. "Well, Captain Illyan?"

Simon looked out over the glittering room, the dancers turning in slow circles around the floor. It was early and there were still a very few children present, Miles and Ivan with heads bent together in one corner, flanked by Armsmen Bothari and Esterhazy; Gregor, too, still a child despite the alarmingly serious expression on his little face, with Cordelia and Lady Alys watching over him from a safe distance. None of them turned to meet his gaze.

Simon nodded. "I accept."

"I'm pleased to hear it." Esteban's expression didn't change. "It's the time of year for sweet things and flowers, Captain Illyan."

Simon nodded again and found he was smiling despite himself. "Yes. Let's talk Winterfair gifts."

 

*

"All right." Aral looked carefully around the room. "You, Prime Minister, you stand there. Admiral Kanzian, you next to him. Cordelia…"

Cordelia shrugged and stepped forwards for a better view.

"Ridiculous idea," Aral muttered, pushing his seal dagger into his thumb and letting the blood run out, "this sort of ritual self-mutilation in the spirit of some kind of faux-archaic veracity." He sealed the document with his signet ring, the mark quickly drying to dull red-brown. "Right, Kanzian, Vortala? Did you see that? You may have to give your names' words on it, so please don't say you blinked."

"My lord Regent," Vortala said, "one receives the impression you may not be taking this quite seriously."

"That’s the influence of my lady wife," Aral said, "who quite rightly believes that any government maintained on the force of ancient signs and sigils and a hefty dollop of concentrated belief should not take _itself_ quite seriously. Are we quite finished now?"

"That should do it," Vortala said. "Good luck, my lord. And you, milady."

"Thank you." Aral bowed at them both, formally; they returned the gesture and left the room, Kanzian saluting before he disappeared through the door. Once the Admiral and Prime Minister were in their downward shuttle, the ship would leave its home orbit and set out for Komarr. For a few minutes, Aral was left alone with Cordelia, next to the window showing Barrayar revolving below. The ship made a circuit of the planet every two hours, and had made several since leaving Tannery Base on the cold morning after Winterfair.

"The terminator," Cordelia said suddenly, as the abrupt slice into darkness hove into view. Aral watched it, remembering that Cordelia had seen many more worlds than he had, had lifted new earth from their surfaces with her bare hands, had looked up into their alien skies and mapped their stars.

"Why are we doing this?" he asked, suddenly.

Cordelia glanced at him. "We're doing this to make things better. We're doing this to convince the Komarran government that we have their best interests at heart. We're doing this so Gregor won't have the same troubles you have. But you knew all that, so I don't think that's what you were asking."

"Not _this_." Aral made an expansive gesture, trying to bring it all in. It had been a day for thinking about it: about the battlefield of history that had led them this far. "This. All of this. Everything."

Cordelia said nothing for a moment, looking out at the planet below. "There," she said quietly, pointing to the last of the day, the last glow of the world's light. In its wake came the regions in night, lit in jewelled patterns of cities and roads, transit networks like terrestrial constellations. It had a rawness underneath its beauty. "That's why. For the good of us all, my love."

Aral put an arm around her, took a deep breath, and felt the lurch beneath his skin, the ship starting to accelerate.

 

*

The rumour mill was no doubt going to be working overtime. The agents assigned as his own personal security screen when out and about were under strict permanent instructions to keep their distance. But they had been witnesses to the flowers, of course, and they would have been shamefully remiss in their duties not to notice their Chief had been waylaid from his simple route home, via a local drinking establishment, by a woman with a great deal of dark hair braided and piled on top of her head, and just the right crimson lipstick for contrast.

Simon tried to explain this to his new companion, who merely chuckled irritatingly and attempted to put an arm around his shoulders; his reflexes cut in, and they jerked back to walking with half a metre's separation. "Look like you aren't quite hating it, can you?" she said, laughing, but quietly. And after a moment, "Are you telling me that they've never seen – that you've never…"

Simon sighed. "Is this relevant?"

"Well, I'd say so. Our success rather depends on it, doesn't it? Is there somewhere…"

"Not my apartment, not yet," Simon said quickly. "There are public parks to the back of the Residence and HQ, but they're likely bugged or may have other agents out tonight." He took a moment to sift through the relevant data on his chip. "Yes, they do. I think I know. Come on."

It only took a few minutes' scanning of the street to find what he was looking for; she followed him obediently as he flagged down the tiny red lightflyer, and the door lifted open to allow them inside. "On the automated traffic network," he explained as she slid in beside him and the door closed. He touched the panel almost at random, and they began moving, smoothly, into the next gap in airborne traffic. "At quiet times they don't need drivers – just enter a credit chit and key in your destination. They're under ordinary city surveillance, but that's routed through ImpSec HQ. Through my office." He gave her a constrained smile.

"And the agents tailing? Where will they think you're going?"

He spread his hands. "Your place, not mine."

She chuckled. "Lord save me from professional spies." Under the protection of the glass canopy, she had relaxed, and he caught the tinge of an accent in her voice. "So… efficient."

"You don't number yourself in that category?" he asked, curiously.

"I consider myself… a talented amateur." She grinned cheerfully at him. "With some very generous and interesting employers, of course."

"Of course," he agreed. His almost-random choice of destination was out on the edge of the city transport network, and they were beginning to lift free of urban crush, out towards clear green landscape. Thoughtfully, he altered their speed to two thirds of maximum. "And who are you?"

She fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly at him. "You don't know?"

He raised his index finger. "One, you're clearly experienced at the work – no one who wasn't could have come upon me quite so quietly in the bar." Another finger. "Two – you're in the employ of our mutual friends, but you're not one of them." He paused. "Which suggests, three: you're in this for pay rather than conviction. From Escobar, by the accent? But perhaps by way of somewhere else. Beta Colony?" A thought occurred. "Komarr?"

"Very good." She gave him a flirtatious smile. "Now, to business." She drew a small item from her pocket, made of nondescript brushed metal. "A portable version of the useful things on your table legs," she explained. "I appreciate the privacy you've obtained for us, but we can't be too careful. My masters have asked me to establish things. Firstly, a handle."

"A handle?"

"You haven't had a handler before, have you?" She smiled. "It's how we do things: the agent names their handler, and vice versa."

Simon thought about it. "January."

"Ah, a classical education, I see. Sure you haven't done this before?"

"Military education," he corrected. "Don't confuse the two, not here. I reported to Emperor Ezar directly, and now…" He shrugged. "And now the rest is dust."

"Yes." She grinned. "There's the question of keeping you, ah, handled."

"Excuse me?"

"Perhaps it can wait for our next meeting." She motioned at the glass; the lightflyer was tipping into descent, at a broad green space just outside the city limits. It was owned by the Vorkosigan family in their capacity as caretakers of their District; at the moment it represented a last strip of city green belt, quiet and undeveloped. Simon took manual control six feet from the ground and gave them a gentle landing.

"I take it," he said dryly, "we _are_ having another meeting."

"You can still…" She gestured, then her eyes turned wicked. "Perhaps it didn't work out. Perhaps the planet didn't move for you."

Simon smiled, humourlessly, and leaned back. "I wouldn't give up, in that case."

"Good." She popped the canopy and dropped lightly onto the dark ground. "Don’t call us, we'll call you" – and she was gone.

 

*

"Native Komarrans," said Dr. Prestwick impressively, sitting back in his velvet-upholstered chair, "have leadership without caste."

Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "That's a generalisation."

Aral laid a hand on her arm. "From which I'm to understand that you don't believe you can cooperate with a society that does?"

"Well, quite." Prestwick leaned in. "That you, the Butcher of Komarr, should come here and say to us – to me – that you're trying to enter into, what is it, some sort of secret political scheme to buy my allegiance…"

"Not at all." Aral was calm. "It wouldn't be my first choice for how to go about things, sir, but it's how your government works, after all. You have voting shares – I'm offering to buy them. A beneficial interest in them, at any rate. You can see here" – he pulled out his sealed charter – "the list of what I'm willing to offer. This is a document sealed by Imperial order. Believe me, for me to renege on any of its terms would not be political machination, it would be treason. What's offered here benefits your planet, and you personally, and all you have to do is offer your voice, and your share, in my support."

Prestwick looked unimpressed. "If it's all even and above board, then why are you making these visits in secret?"

Aral smiled thinly. "I believe you have legislation forbidding insider trading of publically listed securities? Consider it analogous."

Prestwick sat silently for a moment, the cogs visibly turning. Then he straightened, his muscles tensing with decision. "This interview is over." He stood up, and to her clear surprise, nodded at Cordelia. "I've greatly enjoyed your company, Captain Naismith. But your husband's demands are not _primus inter pares_ but those of the conqueror to the conquered. A very good night to you."

They were shown out, from the man's inner sanctum through to his lusciously appointed anterooms, and onto the street outside. The dome blurred the sky above, but not enough to obscure how much time had passed.

"Well," Aral said, sighing, "that went well. Armsman, onwards and upwards."

Esterhazy nodded. "Are you quite all right, sir?"

"What?" Aral glanced at him. "Oh, I'm fine. Just discouraged by the shameful refusal of these people to, ah, be bought." He smiled despite himself. "On to the next one on the list, please."

The list wasn't recorded anywhere but inside Esterhazy's head. He nodded, and they began the short walk to their anonymous-looking vehicle, parked somewhere out of the way during their conference.

"It's not that bad," Cordelia said consolingly. "At least he granted us an audience. And he was right, you know – this sneaking around, from oligarch to prominent politician to head of family with suspiciously large business interests, pushing our own agenda, it does feel like…"

"It's above board," Aral said firmly. "Surely no one here is so politically naïve that they believe decisions are made anywhere but in the small back rooms. That's why we went through the whole palaver with the sealing – to show them that this is real."

"On Beta Colony," Cordelia began, "we wouldn't…"

Esterhazy reacted so smoothly she was still opening her mouth to speak as they hit the ground. "Down!" he yelled, pushed them both, dropped and rolled himself, pushing his wristcom. Aral landed properly through the reflexes of long training, making sure Cordelia was following as they took cover behind the car; above them they could hear Esterhazy's shouts, the distant buzzing of stunner fire, and then the sound of a vehicle accelerating so fast it skidded round a corner, the shriek of tyres against the gravelled road surface, and then, at last, silence.

It was later, when they had been removed into orbit for their own safety, and Solstice dome police and ImpSec Komarr had traded threats and insults and forged, in their inimitable way, the sort of separate peace this whole trip was about in any case, that the doubts began to creep in.

 

*

That," Simon said, slamming the viewer down on the table, "was rank amateurism." 

She glanced at him. "In a minute, Simon. What would you like?"

He blinked for a second, then said, "Soup. With coriander."

She got up and went to the tiny counter to order it, leaving Simon at the table by the window. From where he was sitting, with his back to the wall and the whole space of the little café in front of him, he could take a broad view of his surroundings. It was quiet, but they weren't the only customers. On the other side of the plate glass, the snow was building up in drifts as the wind howled through the narrow lanes of the old caravanserai district. Even here on its gentrifying edge, it looked much further than ten minutes' walk from ImpSec HQ. It was lunchtime. Simon wasn't sure when had been the last time he'd taken an hour for lunch.

After five minutes she returned, setting down a bowl of hot vegetable soup with coriander leaves floating in it in front of him. He sipped it slowly, letting it warm him through. It was a quiet place, this, within and without, and he could feel something of that quiet begin to permeate through him. It was best to meet in public, but even without that concern, the time away from ImpSec surveillance was liberating.

She asked, "Where are your lovely agents today? A very decorative pair, those two."

Simon smiled. "I gave them the slip. Helps keep my faculties sharp, after all. Besides," he added reflectively, "even in my case, it's easier to believe I have a secret lover, than…"

She gave him a predatory smile in return. "Now, you were talking about amateurism."

"This." Simon turned around the viewer to show her. Komarr had a more active media than Barrayar, and the headline and article had landed in the hands of ImpSec intelligence gatherers approximately ten minutes after going to press. He read out, from memory: "'Pro-independence group Komarrans For A Free Komarr have published the image below, declaring it evidence that Imperial Regent Aral Vorkosigan, otherwise Butcher of Komarr, has been pursuing high-ranked members of Komarran society, pushing a pro-Barrayaran agenda in exchange for personal favours…' Personal, italicised. They might as well have replaced it with 'sexual' and be done with it."

She peered at it, then at him. "It's all in shadow. It could be anyone."

Simon glanced at the blurred shape in the image. "Believe me, it's him. What kind of arrant idiot sells their damn intelligence to the media?"

"How likely is it that this plan will succeed, now?" she asked flatly. "We did this your way, Simon. No disruptors, just stunners. So sentimental."

"Who wrings the neck of the golden goose?" he demanded, impatiently. "And I never thought the plan would work regardless. But, to just, to just run in like that…"

"You may have to get used to the fact" – her voice hardened – "that we don't do things like you're used to, Simon. And speaking of which…"

"Well?" He took another sip of his soup.

"That was our sweetener; thank you. Now what's it going to take to keep you?"

"Excuse me?'

"Every man has his price," she said, reflectively. "Money, sex, power."

"And elephants," Simon murmured, not sotto voce enough; she looked at him with gentle enquiry until he was forced to explain. "I once…" – he gestured, vaguely – "used one as a kind of lever. My point was, people are rarely that simple."

"Oh, but they are." She smiled at him sidelong; the effect was rather reptilian. "Men throw around their long words, their lofty ideas about themselves: revenge, justice, honour. Seven veils to cover all that has meaning, in the end. And what about you, then? What's your price?"

Simon shrugged, spreading his hands. "Like I said – people are more complicated than that."

"I don't believe it." She sat back in her seat, hands coming together in a gesture that was a conscious echo of his own. "What is it, then? Money? I doubt it. Rumour has it you froze your military rank at captain in echo of Captain Negri, and draw a commensurate pay. You live in the same apartment you lived in as a newly-minted lieutenant. It's not money. Power?"

Simon murmured, "I am Chief of Imperial Security."

"Yes," she said. "The power behind the power behind the throne. But that's less true than it used to be, these days, isn't it?"

The same gesture seemed to be all he was capable of, right then: the spread hands, the shrug of helplessness.

"And, finally," she said, amused, "the last."

"Sex," Simon said, somehow not stopping himself.

She smiled. "There, there, don't worry. It's clear to the dimmest eye what you like, Captain Illyan."

"Is it?" Simon asked, momentarily alarmed. His chip chose that moment to mass-dump images: surveillance tapes, obscenity-based contraband seizures, every dirty magazine he'd seen in the last ten years of Imperial service. He breathed in, and out, once, twice, then raised his hand to his mouth. There was a tiny wound on his index finger, still left from the rose thorn, and it stung.

"Oh, yes." She placed a hand on his shoulder, then took it away. "But most telling of all: you're still here, listening to me. All this is peripheral; we had you when you didn't pick up your shrimp canapé in that ballroom and walk away."

He nodded; it was inarguable. "I have to go. I won't call you."

"I'll call you. Think about it." She looked at him with interest. "Why the coriander? Some deep significance?"

Mutely, he shook his head, picking up his coat and pulling on his gloves, still damp from his earlier walk. "I like the smell."

The snow blew into his ears as he went out into the street.

 

*

"Information coming in, sir." The voice over the com was recognisable, although Aral couldn't quite at this moment recall the man's name: one of the local analyst staff at ImpSec Komarr, drafted swiftly into the investigation. "Shall I copy it through to you?"

"Give me the gist." Aral stifled a yawn; the day had stretched long, almost through to the following morning given the nineteen-hour Komarran day. Cordelia was awake, but lying on the bed in their cabin with weariness evident in the loose fall of her limbs. "Leave the detail work for the experts."

"Komarrans For A Free Komarr," the man said with distaste. "A pressure group with, ah, ambition. We've had agents pay visits to their local associates and known safehouses. Of course all the birds have flown. We're on it."

"We knew this, Lieutenant," Aral said briskly, making a quick – and from the lack of reaction, accurate – guess at the man's rank. "And I will be breaking orbit soon. Did you have anything fresh to impart? Because if not, then…"

"Yes, sir." The lieutenant sounded suddenly unsure of himself. "Although no one has been physically apprehended, two ImpSec agents took the time to review materials, papers, objects left behind when they went to ground. We've been letting them percolate, lately," he finished, still sounding uncertain. "Let them work up to whatever it is they're planning, without necessarily letting them know we're on to them…"

"All the better to hang them with." Aral was impatient. "And?"

"It's a matter of money." The lieutenant paused. "Since the last time we reviewed their threat status, they've somehow got either a great deal more followers, or… well, we're working on it. But the equipment left behind, the weapons caches… they all speak of some recent, significant cashflow injections. I don't believe we've underestimated them up until now, sir. But we certainly won't in the future."

"I understand," Aral said. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

The crackling connection dissipated. From her horizontal position on the bed, Cordelia said, "The plot thickens."

"I don't like it, Cordelia," Aral said, coming to sit beside her on the edge of the mattress. He rested his head on the pillows for a moment. "ImpSec haven't been saying, and I haven't been asking… but still. Who knew we were here tonight?"

"On Komarr?" Cordelia asked. "It's not an official visit, but it's not a state secret. Probably half of Vorbarr Sultana, in all honesty, not to mention everyone who works for ImpSec everywhere."

"Not that." Aral hesitated. "Here, Cordelia – here in Solstice dome, here on my private mission to suborn the higher echelons of the Komarran government."

"Suborn?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows. "You were telling me, earlier, that it's how the game is played."

"Which is not how the independence groups will put it." Aral took a deep breath, and admitted, "I'm worried. The money…"

Cordelia said nothing, but gripped his hand. "Home soon," she murmured. "Miles will be pleased to have us back."

"Miles," Aral repeated. He hadn't liked to leave Miles for any length of time, agreeing to the short visit to Komarr only after much persuasion and the revelation of Miles's own supreme lack of concern at his parents' temporary absence. "Did we get..."

Cordelia chuckled. "A robotic dog toy, a small set of toy soldiers in historical Komarran colours, and when we were in the ImpSec district office I saw a man go to throw away a mug with a crack in it. I rescued it." She picked it off the table as she spoke; it was a plain black ceramic mug with a heavy base and stylised text wrapping around the handle: _we live to serve_. Rumour had it that it was Negri's handwriting in the official watermark; Aral knew by sight it was Simon's. "Miles will like it. Maybe the soldiers can have it as a fort."

Aral chuckled. "Not quite six years old, and wants his parents to bring him back his own army."

 _But never doubts that they will come back_ , he was thinking, and wondered where and when he'd earned that trust.

 

*

He'd asked her up for coffee within the radio range of his personal security. The street outside was quiet.

"For a while I thought sex was the answer," she said reflectively, picking up things and putting them down. Kitchen implements, flimsies, his very little in the way of personal possessions: a red scarf draped over the back of a chair, which Cordelia had given him, he dimly recalled; a small icon that had belonged to his mother, an ancient holo next to it of his parents on their wedding day. Each item was placed back exactly in its right place. "'Sex' is inaccurate, perhaps. A certain kind of man – it's obvious, to all but the dimmest observer" – and he could tell by her tone that most Barrayarans would fall into that category – "what he likes. On Beta Colony, there are earrings you could wear to signify it, a mismatch in these terms is so awkward. In your case, however…"

She trailed off. He opened his refrigerator and pulled out a small bottle of milk, not taking his eyes off her reflection in the metal internal surfaces. Without looking round, he said, mildly, "If I'm inviting you up for coffee, then let's make coffee."

"Fine," she said.

"There are no bugs in this apartment," he said, still into the refrigerator. "Not that there should be, but I took my lunch hour and checked."

He heard her laugh. "So efficient, always."

Simon turned; she was still standing right where she had been, upright and straight-backed by the front door. There was nowhere in the place without an almost-direct sightline to the door.

"In my case?" Simon repeated, and sat down in one of his chairs.

She smiled, and placed a hand on his arm. He controlled the reflex to react, and she smiled again before she withdrew, looking brightly around the apartment as though she were appraising it for sale. "A nice little place, soundproof," she said. "And the Betans have catalogues full of props. I could tie you up. Not your hands together – tie you to, let me see, bedposts are classic for a reason. Cut off your clothes, make you scream. And you would, Simon, believe me."

He looked at her. "You could do nothing to me without my…"

She laughed, delightedly. "Consent, Simon? Is that what you were going to say? You catch on quickly. You Barrayarans are such purists, and therein lies the problem."

Simon took a deep breath and put the milk into the coffee.

"You don't want to be hurt. You don't want to be humiliated. You don't want to be fucked – at least, not necessarily." Her eyes lit for a moment. "You don't want to be dominated, at least not in the way the Betans and the rest of the civilised galaxy understand it. You want to be owned. And you have had – as you told me the other day – just two careful owners."

"Lord Vorkosigan and I…"

"I'm informed," she said, cutting smoothly over him, "that old Emperor Ezar sent you against your will to have that chip put in your head. What was the experiment attrition rate?"

"There's just me," he answered, almost automatically, looking down. "There were twenty of us. The rest are dead now, or – or severely delusional." He'd visited them, frequently soon after and more rarely in recent years. Their ramblings seemed random, unparsable to their carers, but he understood half-broken utterances about doubling, about worlds fracturing into _real_ and _not-real_.

"That self-same chip has tormented you for almost a decade." She spread her hands. "But you returned to Barrayar after that. You have remained with Imperial Security, giving up yourself in service to the Imperial government that had already done you such damage. It's not even that you want to be owned, Simon Illyan; it's that you can't conceive of life without the artefacts and filaments of that whole, soul-deep, bodily ownership."

He tossed back his head and met her gaze. "Your point?"

"My point is this. Whatever love has been lost between you, in the past or just recently, I find it very difficult to believe that you don't remain in the palm of Aral Vorkosigan's hand."

Simon laid down the cup and took several careful steps across the apartment, turned on his heel, stepped back. The stretch of floor by the window bore the marks of frequent pacing, night after night – he'd always considered it an allowable nervous habit. The large window had a force-field sharing space with it, and was made of toughened, projectile-resistant glass, and despite all of those things, was his favourite thing about the tiny living-space: due to an odd depression and ridge in the land the city was built on, here, it commanded an unexpectedly good view of Vorbarr Sultana. The lights of the city were spread out below, under the darting lightflyers and shuttles climbing.

"I can't be responsible for what you choose to believe, or not," he said, his eyes on the moving patterns of light. "But for whatever it's worth to you, I will say this. I'm ready to be free."

 

*

"HQ, this is Captain Illyan." It wasn't that they wouldn't recognise his voice in an instant, but it was protocol – they were probably checking the incoming route of the call now, standard procedure before listening to a word he said. "I need to speak to whoever's in charge of my personal security detail." The chip would have told him the name, but sometimes it was better to pretend normality.

A moment passed, then: "Captain Illyan, sir, this is Captain Kaverin. How can I help?"

Simon paused to note the non-military niceties in the form of address. "Stand down, Captain. You and your men. You're relieved of duty until tomorrow morning."

"Excuse me, sir?"

Simon sighed. "I know you heard me the first time, Captain."

"Yes, sir. Understood, sir. Can I ask…"

"Call it a vacation," Simon breathed, and cut the link. He took off the wristcom and laid it down on the table, picked up his gloves and his coat and the red scarf, and set out into the cold. ImpSec moved quickly – when he made his usual checks, he wasn't being followed. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked on. There had been no fresh snow for a few days, but it was starting again, coming down white and perfect on top of the crunchy brown ice left on the streets. Simon kicked through it absent-mindedly, vaguely aware of the layer building up on his face and hair.

They met in a grubby prole café overlooking a small square of scrubland, towards the east of the city. Simon's own memory provided the fact he'd eaten in places like this many times before, as a schoolboy growing up in the northern provinces. He ordered soup again and knew what it would be like before it came, indistinguishable vegetables and meat but steaming hot and smelling of pepper.

"Good afternoon, Captain Illyan."

"Good afternoon." Simon studied the man, letting his chip take care of recording the fine detail. He noted a flash of familiarity and filed it away for later. "You have the advantage of me, I believe."

The man smiled, but didn't offer his name. "You don't appear surprised to see me."

"I'm not." Simon leaned back in the dirty plastic chair. "I believe I was being… groomed, would that be the term? And that I have not been, ah" – he paused to take in their surroundings, the quiet space of the café – "found wanting."

"Your handler was impressed by you." The man clasped his hands on the table. "I defer to that judgement. You may consider this meeting a gesture of trust."

Simon smiled wryly. "But that's not all there is to it, I suspect."

A pause. "Name your price, Captain Illyan."

The man's straightforwardness was refreshing, Simon decided. He took a moment to answer the question, giving straightforwardness for straightforwardness. "My freedom. From… this life."

He was looking out of the window as he spoke, and it seemed to him for a moment he saw that life, not in the icy clarity of the chip but in the stains and traces left on the snow-encrusted paving stones, in his own footprints bringing him to this winter afternoon, through his own choices and hobbled by his own bonds, step by step by step.

"Done." The man nodded. "Whatever path you choose to your freedom, Simon."

They let that hang for a moment. The snow drifted down past the window; Simon's soup was cooling.

"Now." The man rummaged under the table for something. "Down to business. The Lord Regent and his lady wife return to the capital tomorrow morning. I believe they're going straight to a Residence meeting on agricultural subsidies, of all things."

"That's right." Simon nodded.

The man took his hands out from under the table and laid a simple pen and paper in between them. "I'm not going to ask you to go through the tiresome details of it all. ImpSec shift changes, different routes, perimeter gaps, systematic weaknesses. I'm going to ask you this. If you were doing this, how would you do it?"

Silently, Simon picked up the pen and began to sketch, annotating as he went, occasionally going back over himself to improve small details. It took five minutes. He placed the pen back on the table and looked up.

The man pocketed it. "Thank you. I'll be in touch."

Simon nodded and got up, leaving half the soup behind him. He didn't look back as he went out into the street, the shop bell ringing dismally above him as the door closed.

He walked home through the snow, not covering his head, letting the stored maps on his chip guide him in the absence of his conscious mind. Inside his tiny apartment, he picked up a bottle of maple mead and a weapon.

 

*

"What's the delay?" Cordelia asked, idly gazing out of the window at the usual businesslike fervour of a city street being cleared for the Lord Regent and his associated hangers-on. "Not that I mind, I'm only curious."

Aral reached out and stroked her hair. "So impatient, dear Captain."

"Believe me, I'm not," Cordelia said, unsuccessfully hiding a yawn behind her other hand. "I'm not even awake yet."

Aral sighed. "I don't believe I am, either." It had been the middle of the night, ship's time, when they returned from Komarr, but the meeting with Vortala hadn't been able to wait: mid-morning in Vorbarr Sultana and representatives from nearly every Southern Continent District to talk about agriculture in the region of the Black Escarpment. Their livelihoods, Aral reminded himself sternly: and if not theirs, then the livelihoods of the millions of people living in those Districts. He yawned again and pulled himself together.

"Still," he said after a moment, "this is getting a little ridiculous. Armsman?"

The tap on the interior glass of the groundcar yielded nothing much; Armsman Esterhazy managed to communicate through a very expressive movement of his shoulders that the reasons for the delay, if there were any, were beyond him. "I heard tell," he said lugubriously, after a moment, "that it was something to do with ImpSec."

"Is there anything in the sight of God and His creation that doesn't, eventually, have something to do with ImpSec?" Aral muttered for Cordelia's ears; she smiled and squeezed his hand as he reached for his wristcom. "Kou, come in. Can you get someone from Illyan's office, please? We're stuck behind some sort of unaccountable traffic cordon about twelve blocks from the Residence, and I've got a meeting in – well, I've got a meeting now."

"I'm trying, sir," came Kou's voice, sounding frustrated. "It's all confusion – bear with me, sir."

"ImpSec, confused?" Cordelia said, quietly. "Obstructive and vastly aggravating, yes. Confused – no."

"Kou?" Aral said again. "Kou, answer me, please."

"Sir – Lord Vorkosigan, sir." It was Kou who was sounding confused now, Aral thought disjointedly: confused, or… shocked? "Captain Illyan – he's dead, sir."

Cordelia's hand unclasped by reflex, her fingers uncurling on his palm. The car had begun to move again, Aral registered dimly, as from a great distance – the hold-up, whatever it had been, seemed to have dissipated. They slid through the morning traffic. Aral said, very carefully, "Please let me have more details, Captain Koudelka."

A moment passed, and then Kou said: "Someone from ImpSec, sir."

"My lord Regent," came the new voice, "Captain Kaverin. When Captain Illyan didn't come to work this morning, I called his apartment a couple of times and got no answer. He doesn't tend to oversleep, sir." The man's voice lightened ironically on that. "After that I sent a team over to break down the door. They found – they found his body, sir."

Cordelia said, very quietly, "Are they trying to tell us Simon took his own life?"

"Cause of death, Captain?" Aral said, mustering up some briskness from the part of his brain that was operating this conversation without him.

"Ah – drugs, sir. Sleeptimer tablets, we think. And alcohol," Kaverin added, as an afterthought. "His body was taken to ImpMil for security before post mortem. There's a risk, his chip, you know…" Even over the com, it was clear the man was shrugging helplessly.

"Do nothing until I've attended personally," Aral said, still crisp, and cut the link. Without conscious effort, his hand had found Cordelia's again; they sat there for a few moments with the world around slipping smoothly past the windows, in a shared and awful stillness.

"Damn," Aral said after a minute. "Damn, damn, _damn_."

"He didn’t," Cordelia said, bleakly, "he didn't really – and how they can think of the _chip_ , and its security risks, at a time like this…"

"Simon," Aral said slowly, "would have done exactly the same thing." With more strength in his voice, he added: "I won't see him buried with it."

"I didn't want to see him buried at all," Cordelia said, slowly. "Aral – why would he have done this? Why? This, this plan of yours…"

Aral said, very softly, "Simon came up with the plan in the first place. Simon suggested that we – Cordelia, I don't know, I don't know. Unless…"

He stopped. Cordelia looked at him steadily for a few moments, and then when he didn't speak, said, "Aral, I'm begging you to finish that thought."

"When I… came back, from Escobar," Aral said, with difficulty, "before you came – well, when you came you accused me of suicidal tendencies. So did Simon. He ought to know – he was spying on me for Ezar, which came to mean, scraping me out of the gutters and the wreckage of my own lightflyer. And then when he took Negri's place, I have no doubt he read Negri's reports. He must have known, or come to learn, why I was drinking myself to death…"

"Escobar," Cordelia repeated. "Aral, what are you trying to tell me? That Simon killed himself out of…"

She couldn't say it. And then the ground shook and metal of the car was smashed through with sonic aftershocks, and everything went black.

 

*

"Gregor!" Cordelia said, and made a sound like _oof!_ as he thudded into her. "Gregor, darling, it's all right. Aral and I are fine. There was an attack, but it failed. We're perfectly all right. "

Gregor, who at ten already had some of the solemnity of office, stood back and looked very much like a young child who had been very frightened. "They said…"

"I know, dear, but it's all right now." She gave him a firm hug. "Listen, Gregor, Drou is going to stay with you tonight, is that all right? We have to go home to Miles, and you" – she didn't say, _you are too valuable to risk out there tonight_ – "must stay here. But Drou is coming just as soon as she can."

Gregor frowned. "Won't Captain Koudelka, and the baby…"

"They'll do without her for one night."

He was still frowning, but he nodded, and consented to go with one of the Vorbarra Armsmen upstairs to wait for her.

"Thank goodness for Kou and Drou," Aral sighed, when he'd gone. "And you, dear Captain."

The people gathered in the hallways of the Residence all looked harassed, drawn and ferociously busy, but the hard-edged panic had blurred into a more sustained pace of activity. In the long hours since morning, security teams had scoured the area around the Residence and the point of the attack, arresting and questioning as they went. They had to go out sometime, Cordelia was thinking bleakly; they couldn't hole up in here forever, waiting for the inevitable. Gingerly, she touched the long gash on her arm, her only lasting souvenir of the jolt the car had received. Cuts and bruises only, she'd told them, over and over, while they were treated for shock, and then there had been the hours where they'd been kept to one room by layers and layers of ImpSec doing their job, re-securing the perimeter, "ascertaining the course of events", as the agent in charge had put it.

 _Our groundcar nearly blew up_ , Cordelia had said, flatly in reply. _They missed, and now there's a gigantic hole in the road, and we have to go on._

And now it was early evening on a midwinter day, the air crisp and icy cold around them and they were all, remarkably, still alive. "We should go home," Cordelia said. "Miles…"

Aral nodded. "Lieutenant, are you sure that's all of them, and that no one…"

"There are reports coming in from various analysts as we speak, sir," the ImpSec lieutenant said, looking troubled. "Apparently the apprehension of the terrorist agents on the scene has caused some, ah, some jigsaw pieces to come tumbling into place."

"The Komarran group," Aral said, nodding. "An attack on a groundcar isn't very original, but it's effective. And with me publically assassinated, and a Komarran claim of responsibility…"

"Civil war," Cordelia supplied. "But I don't understand – if they had so much information, then why didn't the plan come off? Why did they – well, I suppose they missed. Why, and how…?"

"Simon will have theories about that," Aral said, and then smoothly, without missing a beat, put his fist into a door. " _Damn_."

Cordelia said, a little tearfully, "Don't beat up the Residence, love. ImpSec won't like it."

"You should go home," Aral said, quickly, "you should go home and rest, and I'll go to ImpMil and…"

"We'll both go," Cordelia told him, in a gentle tone that she hoped would brook no argument. "We'll go back to Vorkosigan House, and we'll look in on Miles and we'll have something to eat, and then we'll both go."

The winter sun was setting as they entered the house, dipping below the line of shrubs on the scrub ground opposite. Sergeant Bothari came to attention in the hallway, nodding at Cordelia and saluting Aral. "My lord, milady."

"Report, Sergeant," Aral said, tiredly.

"All quiet. Lord Miles is sleeping." Bothari looked uncertain for a moment. "Sir, we – the household, that is, we've heard some things…"

"We're fine, Sergeant," Aral said. "Lady Vorkosigan and I are fine. There was an attack on our groundcar on the way to the Residence, but it didn't come off – ImpSec have arrested the people responsible." He hesitated, then Cordelia saw the decision form on his face: if it must be done, it must begin now. "Bothari. We're fine, and Gregor is fine… but Simon Illyan is dead."

"Oh." Bothari looked confused. "If the attack failed…"

"He died… last night, we think." Aral sounded very calm. "We’re still trying to ascertain the details."

Bothari nodded. "He was a good man," he offered, quietly.

"Yes," Cordelia said, her eyes bright in her reflection on the polished tiles, "he was. That's all."

Bothari nodded again, and turned to climb the stairs, returning to his post outside Miles's room, standing guard. They were left standing there in the entrance hall of the mostly-silent house, looking at each other.

"You didn't say," Cordelia said, her voice strained, "how… how he died."

Aral said, "We don't yet know the exact circumstances surrounding Simon's death. Until we do…" He paused. "Until we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he committed suicide, I am reluctant to, ah, to." He shrugged, spreading his hands.

"In my experience," Cordelia said, hoping she sounded calm, like she was weighing her words very deliberately, "two types of people kill themselves: very unhappy people, or very ill people, or more likely than either, very unhappy ill people. To call that _shame_ , or somehow blameworthy…"

"Cordelia," Aral said softly, "if Simon Illyan killed himself, I don't understand it. Simon is – he was – he had survived. Of the twenty experimental subjects who went to Illyrica, he survived. Of those thousands who were part of the Escobar invasion, he survived. The war, the Pretendership, this Regency, the daily battles, he had _survived_. I don't understand it."

"It was because," Simon said, quietly, "no one has ever passed on false information to their enemy, and then killed themselves from remorse."

 

*

Simon decided afterwards, and had it confirmed by the chip, that that was the only occasion in his life he had been punched and kissed by the same person in such quick succession.

*

Simon was still slightly built, thought not twenty-seven any more, with that oddly innocent puppyish cast to his features. Aral crushed him carefully, breathing in the living scent of the man, the warmth of him, before letting him go and passing him off to Cordelia, who pulled him to her with as much fervour if less outright violence.

"Well," said Simon's voice, slightly muffled, "there goes my deep cover."

Aral put a hand on his shoulder and held him at arm's length. "Explain."

"Yes, sir." Simon sank onto the edge of a chair, then moved tiredly back to standing. He was wearing surgical scrubs, at least two sizes too big for him – probably stolen, Aral decided. "Ah – I had to do it. I am so very sorry. It was all getting away from me, otherwise."

"Simon," Cordelia said quickly, "how did you do it?"

"I came across it at ImpSec HQ, oh, years ago." He was shivering, an unhealthy feverishness in his eyes. "It's a drug we confiscated from a Jacksonian agent a galactic squad had captured under directions from Ezar. It's…" He paused. "Once the subject is unconscious, It slows down heartbeat and vital functions, and it lowers body temperature. Not without any ill effects, but without killing you, hopefully."

Cordelia looked like she wanted to say something at 'hopefully', but closed her mouth firmly and gestured to him to go on.

"It doesn't stand up to long-term examination, of course," Simon said, "but I, ah, didn't think it would have to. I liberated one dose from HQ and took it last night, and then, ah" – he was visibly cringing – "stunned myself, hoping I'd be found in time this morning. Which… seems to have happened."

Aral took a deep breath. Before he could say anything, Cordelia said, "Simon – you smell absolutely vile. What is that?"

Simon gave her an apologetic smile. "Ah… the drug overdose. I thought it would need alcohol to make it seem realistic. I wasn't sure how the maple mead would react with the meds if I drank it, so, I, ah…" He grimaced. "I had to pour it into my hair."

"Oh," Cordelia said faintly.

"In which case it's a wonder you have any scalp left." Aral sighed. "Simon, I take it this means I have to call some of the finest doctors in the galaxy at ImpMil and explain to them why one of their corpses just walked off a slab?"

"Ah… yes, sir."

"Then why don't I do that, and you can go and wash that awful stuff out of your hair. Someone will find you some clothes, as well. And…" Aral gestured mutely. "All right, we'll get to that in a minute. Go."

Simon nodded, saluted – properly, not an analyst's salute – and walked off to the steps with distinct impression of having his tail between his legs. Cordelia followed, with her hand over her mouth in a manner very suggestive of hiding a smile.

When they came down to the library, fifteen minutes later, Simon was dressed neatly in undress greens and running a towel through over his head, and looked almost normal. The change went deeper, and it was the power of sense memory, Aral decided – the mixture of alcohol and the harsh tang of the mortuary had its own particular set of associations, now replaced with the clean scent of soap and hot water. He breathed out, slowly.

"Well," Simon said, awkward.

Aral opened his mouth to speak, but Cordelia raised her hand. "One moment, please, Aral. Simon, I'm going to ask you a question now, and I expect an honest answer. Is that understood?"

Simon looked a little alarmed, but he nodded. "Yes."

"When you took those drugs last night, were you trying to kill yourself? Even in part?"

Simon's expression didn't change. "No, milady. I wasn't."

"Thank you." Cordelia waved an expansive hand at Aral. "All right, you can interrogate him now."

Before Aral could, there was the sound of a commotion in the hallway below and then the irregular tapping sound of someone walking very fast with a stick. "Sir!" Kou yelled, coming headlong through the door, "I've a message for you from HQ, it's the people ImpSec arrested today, some of them had fast penta and some of them didn't and they're all saying the same things about Cetagandan plots, and…" His swordstick hit the floor with a loud clatter as Simon stood up. "Oh, oh my God."

Aral took a deep breath. "Simon, _sit_. Kou, you too. Now. Explain, please."

Simon was looking at his feet. He was shivering again, Aral noted, wondering what exactly had been in the drug. "Sir," Simon said, sounding tired, "you have a Cetagandan spy in your government."

 

*

Miles woke up in the middle of the night asking for water. Cordelia heard his tiny footsteps and went to get it for him, sitting by his bed as he fell back asleep. "Aral," she called very softly, as he passed by the doorway; he turned to come in, Bothari obligingly stepping back to let him in and then setting off for his own bed.

"Well?" Cordelia asked, when they were alone but for Miles, sleeping peacefully.

Aral passed a hand through his hair. "It's as we suspected. The Cetagandans are bankrolling at least some of the Komarran terrorist groups. And double-crossing them too, as far as we can tell. And…" He sighed. "Commodore Vorbohn has been indirectly passing information to the Cetagandans for at least a year."

Cordelia swore softly. "How?"

"Simon said it took him a while to sift through the chip data and figure it out. During his adventures, he met with a man that he was sure he'd seen before. Turns out he's one of Vorbohn's _Armsmen_ , though I doubt he's taken any oath. Vorbohn knows what's happening, of course, but he's not an active participant. Imagine it. The man follows Vorbohn everywhere, into Ops, into ImpSec, into the Council of Ministers, takes his own notes, draws his own conclusions. He needs a good memory and the ability to remain present but largely unnoticed, and he's a perfect spy." Another long pause, and then Aral put his head in his hands. "Oh, God, _Simon_. He could hang for this."

Cordelia put a hand on his shoulder and asked, softly, "What have you done with him?"

Aral lifted his head. "Put him in one of the second-floor guest rooms with a guard on the door. He looked fairly done-in, and besides, I didn't think we should let him out tonight. I don’t want to start rumours of ghosts abroad in Vorbarr Sultana."

Cordelia smiled wryly. After a pause, she asked: "What were your orders, Aral, really?"

Aral snorted. " _My_ orders. This was his idea."

"Tell me," Cordelia said gently.

"Firstly, the fight," Aral admitted. "The idea was… to attract attention. From anyone who might consider him a possible prospect for defection. From anyone, but the Cetagandans or the Komarrans in particular. In which noble objective he seems to have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Cetagandan plots to manoeuvre Komarran plots! Firstly the Komarran media sabotage my political plans for Komarr just as a mere _hors d'oeuvre_ , then the Cetagandans pay to have me killed, and there he is in the middle of it. Simon… doesn't do anything by halves."

"But…" Cordelia prompted.

Aral hesitated. "The risk was beyond calculable. Beyond…" He paused. "Beyond," he said carefully, "the risk that Simon Illyan, the man I know, my careful cautious spy whom Ezar gave to me for my own, would have taken. In my estimation."

Cordelia shook her head. "What are you going to do?"

Aral shrugged. "I don't know. I'm having him write me a report. What else do I ever do?" He paused. "You know, he said, it was all getting away from me. I've known him a long time and I've never heard him say anything he didn't precisely mean. I wonder if that was his way of saying…"

Cordelia said, tartly, "You know, contrary to the opinions of you, him, all of ImpSec, Ops and most of Vorbarr Sultana, he is human. He's fallible, alongside with everything else that comes along with it. Even with that damned chip in his head, he is a human being."

"You're right." Aral sounded calmer. He stood up and yawned enormously. "We should go to bed."

"Yes," Cordelia said, yawning in her turn, "we should."

She turned to give Miles a kiss before they left the room. They walked silently, hand-in-hand, down through the darkened house.

 

*

Some innate sense of honour, or perhaps just some stern thought of what his mother would have said, made Simon feel duty-bound to go and apologise personally to everyone had genuinely believed him dead. He was grateful to the point of cowardice that there were no children on the list: Gregor would have learned of it the following morning, and Miles and Ivan had never been told either. After sending replies to messages of condolence and making the rounds of his own staff, he stopped by his own apartment to dump civvies for Imperial greens, and went to Vorkosigan House. Kou and Bothari took the apology with the measured calm always adopted by regular Service men when faced with ImpSec in all its glory; Simon was grateful for that amount of normality, at least.

And then he took a deep breath, ran his hands over his hair to push it down, and knocked on the door into the library.

"Come in, Captain Illyan."

Aral was seated at his desk, the comconsole buzzing gently, surrounded by reports. He looked up and pressed a panel to push the machine into hibernation. The silence had become a lot to bear by the time Aral said, "Sit down here, please."

"Yes, sir." Simon sat, clasped his hands in his lap and adopted a straight-backed posture.

"I've read your unexpurgated report, which I have no doubt is going to be classified to the highest levels. Thank you for providing it." Aral paused, looked straight at him. "On a careful reading, I don't believe that there was a point where you committed treason."

Simon inhaled sharply.

Aral went on, "And now I have to decide what to do with you. You… have caused me a great deal of trouble, Simon."

Simon noted the use of his given name and kept his expression entirely straight.

"I could start by discussing what happened on Komarr. I know your what your opinion of my plan therewas. I know what my own opinion of it was. And taken together, I understand the basis from which you acted." He didn't say, _from which you passed on secrets of state_ , for which Simon was grateful.

"It wouldn't have worked," he said. "Either they're honest politicians, in which case they won't be bought, or they're not, in which case they won't stay bought. Give it five years."

"Which we are now compelled to do regardless." Aral stared at him. "You took that decision into your own hands, when you made the choices you made. And the attack on the car… if you had been wrong…"

"I apologise, sir." Simon breathed out. "I am very, very sorry. I was anxious to salvage it any way I could."

"Which you did." Aral leaned back, still with the usual intensity in his gaze. "And for which I'm grateful. I'm curious… why did you believe your death would resolve the crisis?"

Simon took a deep breath. "I believe my Cetagandan handler was under the impression I would somehow stop the Komarran plot to assassinate you."

Aral asked, "Why?"

"They don't want total destabilising chaos on Barrayar, after all, only a continued active resistance on Komarr." Simon paused. "But bankrolling the Komarrans to create constant internal political uproar isn't a bad idea – it keeps our attention firmly on the internal matters of the Barryaran Imperium, and not on, say, them. The Cetagandans, I mean."

He was incoherent through nervousness, he realised to his dismay.

Aral frowned at him and said, "So the attempted assasination creates political uproar, I understand that. But why does your death…"

"My alleged suicide." Simon breathed and tried to stay calm. "The Komarrans naturally assumed it was out of guilt, and thus the only reason the plan could have failed was double-crossing by their Cetagandan masters. Whom they proceeded to bring down with them under ImpSec questioning, thus bringing the whole thing into the open. Sir."

Aral sighed. "Clear as mud, Simon, thank you."

"Yes, sir."

Aral didn't speak for a moment, merely keeping his unwavering gaze fixed on Simon. When he went on, his tone was contemplative. "Which brings us to our real problem, which is this. I don't know what to do with you. I could reprimand you for this whole business, draft a document of censure and place it on your file."

"The security clearance," Simon murmured.

"Correct. I suspect only three or four people would ever see it. I could take a further step and remove you from your position. But that… would not be in keeping with my Imperial duties. I went along with this plan of yours originally because it was a good plan. You are, quite simply, the best man for the job. And such is the nature of your talents I would be fearful of you putting them to use… elsewhere."

Simon sat perfectly still.

"Of course…" Aral steepled his fingers, perhaps in echo of Simon's own habitual gesture. "I could have you assassinated."

Simon inclined his head. "You could. But such exercise of Imperial power would be… impolitic."

"Yes," Aral breathed, looking predatory, "that’s right. You could have an accident."

"I'd see it coming." Simon paused. "I am liege-sworn to you, sir. You could order me to kill myself in your service."

He didn't think he imagined the real flash of pain in Aral's eyes, though he didn't mentally replay it. "Simon, sometimes you are just…"

"This is my _job_ , sir. This is what I do."

Aral held his gaze for several seconds before he nodded, relaxing suddenly. "That's right. Chief of Imperial Security, in whatever form or shape that may take." He paused another moment, tapping a fingernail on the table. "Right, enough, we're done here."

Simon rose, but paused as Aral tensed again. "One more thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"If you ever, ever fake your own death again, I _will_ strip you of your silver eyes, bust you down to ensign, ship you out to Kyril Island and make you clean toilets with a toothbrush for the rest of your natural lifespan, is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. Perfectly, sir."

"Good." Aral gave him the hint of a smile. "Dismissed. And, Simon? Take the rest of the day off, for God's sake. I don't think I can deal with you any more today."

 

*

The interrogations were still going on. During a mid-afternoon break, Simon relieved the door guard and entered the tiny cell.

At the sound of the door opening, she looked up, curled on the bench at the far wall with her feet beneath her. Her hands were shackled behind her, gently but expertly tied to a metal loop set in the wall. "Oh. You."

He consulted his notes. "Kay Diaz, born and raised on Escobar, but you've lived other places since: Komarr, Beta Colony, Earth and – ah. Eta Ceta."

She scowled at him. "What of it?"

Simon shrugged. "Nothing in particular. I'll go on thinking of you as 'January', if I may."

She pulled at her bonds. "It's not like I can stop you. Why are you here, Simon? If you're here to interrogate me, your colleagues have been doing an excellent job. I told them all manner of interesting things and some of them might even have been true. And I have an allergy to fast-penta."

"I assumed as much, although I'm not here to interrogate you." Simon took in the details of the cell, the iron bars, the tiny hatch in the door. Conditions down here were spartan and chilly, and very secure, but without the brutalities of Ezar's day. It had been a quiet, long-term project.

"Really?" She looked up at him cynically. "You're here to make small talk? How… uncharacteristic."

Simon smiled. "I'm apologising to everyone who thought I was dead."

"Are you?" She laughed. "Apology accepted. Seems the least I can do for you, you poor son of a bitch."

Simon leaned against the wall and folded his arms. "What makes you say that?"

"You can lie to me all you like, but you lie to yourself. I've seen your life, Simon Illyan. Extradition to Escobaran secure custody is going to be a picnic in comparison. "

"Quite possible." Simon nodded. "And… I never lied to you. Not once."

She raised her eyebrows. "Really? Then why am I here" – she rattled her bonds again – "and you're over there?"

He smiled. "I told you, and your colleagues, exactly how I would have engineered an attack on the Lord Regent's groundcar, which is what I was asked. I neglected to mention I'd had the municipal authorities raise some rather well-timed roadblocks and traffic diversions. You might say it was my fault they were late for their appointment. Merely something I omitted to mention."

"Aral Vorkosigan's loyal dog," she said, and laughed. "I wasn't wrong about what you like."

"Perhaps not." Simon stood up. "It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The feeling is not mutual. No, Simon, don't go" – she sounded truly fearful for a moment, and Simon remembered the interrogators he had displaced – "I still have one question."

"Go on," he said, turning.

She fixed him with an intense gaze. "What would your price have been?"

"Lime and sugar," he said, and went out.

 

*

The following morning, when grudgingly allowed to return to his desk by the Lord Regent, Simon found two roses in his in-tray.

*

"Carry on, ensign," Aral was saying, "you're doing fine" – when someone came running down the stairs and barrelled straight into him and then went on running, feet still cycling forwards as Aral pushed their owner gently against the wall. "At ease, soldier."

Simon looked at him, down at his own hands, and then up at the wall. "I have just," he began, then paused, taking a deep breath, visibly collecting himself. "I have just…"

"What's that you've got there?" Aral asked, curiously.

"A rose," Simon said, "a rose" – and looked up and down and then slumped against the wall. The ensign, currently playing the role of the outer cell guard, was watching this small drama with interest and a little alarm; Aral made a decision and led his Chief of ImpSec along the corridor. At the very end, it turned into a basement tunnel ending into a blank wall and another block of cells, disused.

Aral pushed open a heavy door. "Inside."

Simon complied, and Aral followed. Although the planning had been thorough, the script carefully drafted, they hadn't laid down the terms of the reconciliation, he supposed one might call it; as in amnesty and reconciliation, as in the laying down of arms after a bitter war. "Tell me," he said, "has ImpSec's institutional paranoia reached such a stage that it undertakes surveillance of cells with no one in them?"

Simon looked around the dank little room with interest. "Not more so than anywhere else," he pronounced. "And what there is goes through my office."

"Glad to hear it. Now. What is it?"

Rather than answering, Simon slumped down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. Obediently, he tucked his feet away under him as Aral stepped over, leaned against the wall himself and slid down to join him. The panicked expression was gone from his face; it had become calculating, and then calm. "You," he said, at last.

"Me." Aral spread his hands in quiet entreaty.

"I was coming to find you to start shouting that we'd got the wrong person. Or collection of persons."

"I read your final custody report, yes," Aral said, nodding. "It's over."

"You," Simon said again, and leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. And then looked up. "Yesterday you wanted to kill me."

Smiling, Aral picked up the rose. "I often do. I didn't want you to think you'd been forgotten. I've seen the kind of thing that happens, to people who think that."

"You are a stark raving lunatic," Simon informed him, closing his eyes again. "If it had been discovered – if it had become known…"

"Simon," Aral said, gently, "you have never understood the power of a gesture."

Simon laughed suddenly. "Apparently not. I thought I was being threatened, for God's sake. I even asked Lady Alys…"

"Alys no doubt gave you the right answer." Aral turned over the rose in his hands. "Red, and white. Did you know they tend to avoid it in Imperial flower arrangements?"

Simon glared at him. "There is a whole universe of things I've had to learn since I met you. Yes, I did know that. Blood, and bone. In other words, what would be left of me, if I reneged on my newfound allegiance."

"Blood and bone," Aral said, lightly, "what holds us together."

Simon nodded. "But you still wanted to kill me. Not to mention how you hit me in front of eleven witnesses in Vorkosigan House a little more than two weeks ago."

"I tend to have strong feelings about people generally." Aral touched his shoulder and asked, very quietly, "Did you mean what you said, then?"

"When?"

"Before I…" Aral said, quietly, and smacked Simon very lightly in the side of the head.

Simon let himself slip further down the dank and chilled wall, almost down to floor level, into the comforting murk. "There's something I tell my men," he said, after a moment, "and myself, sometimes. The best lie is the truth."

Aral nodded. "The truth. Let me have the truth, Simon. You said to me, it's all getting away from me."

Simon said, "Are you asking me if I'd meant to defect?"

Aral shook his head. "I would never ask you that, Simon." Very gently, he kissed the top of Simon's head. "By the time I ask you that, it's far, far too late."

Simon considered, then reached out. His palms came together above his head. "Forgive me, I don't remember the words of my oath just now," he whispered.

Aral took just a moment to understand, held Simon's hands between his own, and said, fondly, lovingly: "Liar."

**Author's Note:**

> Contains strong references to suicide.


End file.
